


Fell In Love With A Songstress (Had To Trade My Gun In For A Tune)

by sarcastic_fina



Category: Glee
Genre: AU, F/M, mafia!glee, prompt: mafia au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-03
Updated: 2012-09-03
Packaged: 2017-11-13 11:08:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,880
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/502875
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sarcastic_fina/pseuds/sarcastic_fina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After twelve years working for mob boss Leroy Berry, Puck takes on the full-time job of keeping an eye on Berry's Broadway actress of a daughter, Rachel. Lines gets blurred, people get killed, and lives are changed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fell In Love With A Songstress (Had To Trade My Gun In For A Tune)

  
**made by** : [stacylk](http://stacylk.livejournal.com/profile)

 

It was stupid. It was probably in his top 5 dumb as shit things he'd ever done. The fact that he had a top 5 was probably telling; the fact that this actually wasn't number one was probably worse.

Puck had a hard life; a screwed up childhood with an absentee dad and a not-so-supportive mom led him into a youth of crime, which inevitably meant as soon as juvie was done with, instead of getting on the straight and narrow, he made connections with big and badder.

Leroy Berry was the kind of man that would sooner kill you than look at you; in fact, it was his reputation. In public, he looked like a kind, smart, generous businessman. Behind doors, he was breaking fingers, smashing kneecaps, and playing Russian Roulette with other people's lives.

There were factions of New York that were run by the mob, and the parts that said they weren't were lying. Puck had grown up sitting on the stoop, watching deals go down right in front of him. Half the time, those same mobsters would see him sitting there and give him a nod. Whether they knew he admired what they did or they just didn't care that some curious kid was watching, he didn't know.

But when he turned eighteen, with two prior stints in juvie, Puck figured he didn't have a whole lot to lose. His ma threw him out on his ear as soon as he was old enough to fend for himself, according to her. Having dropped out of high school and not seeing a GED as anything worth having, instead he started offering up his services to some less than ideal people. People who might let you join them at the table for dinner, but would just as quickly cap a bullet in the back of your head while you were eating.

Somehow, and some days he wondered how he even got there, he made his way up the ranks until he was close enough to Leroy that the man gave him a serious job.

Watch his daughter.

Now, maybe if it were anybody else, Puck would scoff at the chance. Who wanted to be watching over some spoiled chick when they could be out breaking arms and collecting dues? But this girl… She was special. Rachel Berry was one-of-a-kind; despite her father's high ranking in the mob world, she'd set out to take Broadway by storm, and she wasn't letting her last name or her dad's connections hinder or help her. But while she wasn't interested in Leroy's help, he wasn't letting his only daughter walk around in a city where just about everybody had it out for him and anybody he was related to. So the job of keeping an eye on her fell to only those Leroy trusted most.

Maybe it was the twelve years under his belt, or maybe it was something else, but one day Leroy came up to him and told him that he was trusting Puck with the most important thing in his life.

What he _should_ have done was suggest someone else for the job. Maybe goofy Finn who was clumsy, sure, but he was a dope at heart and he actually _wanted_ the job. Plus, he didn't have the same kind of blood Puck had on his hands. Or Mike, who was fast and probably juggled his gun around too much, but would at least be able to react quickly and logically if something went South. Hell, even Santana, one of the few women who was considered just as deadly as every other man under Leroy's thumb, would've been a good choice to keep an eye on the songstress. She would blend in, at least.

But instead, Puck did what he always did; whatever Leroy asked him to.

At first, Rachel was everything Puck expected her to be; high maintenance, loud, and a Grade-A diva. She happily slammed doors in his face every time he showed up at the theater to pick her up and escort her home when she finished rehearsals or shows. She complained that he was single-handedly ruining her career and alienating her from her fans. She picked fights with him every chance she got. She burst into tears at random because she knew how uncomfortable it made him and she was aces at crying on cue. It was hell.

And then one day, things changed.

"Your dad's been shot."

Puck wasn't sure he'd ever seen genuine fear in Rachel's face before. She was always so strong, so dismissive of the lifestyle that surrounded her. She didn't care what her dad did or what other people thought; all she wanted was to be a star of her own making. But when she heard the news about Leroy, her face went stark white and her hands trembled. Tears dribbled from her eyes and they weren't the overly loud, gulping sobs she liked to throw at him just to get him out of her hair. These were real and terrified and genuinely upset.

He gathered her up, tucked his jacket around her even though it swamped her tiny frame, and led her to his car so he could drive her to the hospital. She was quiet; she didn't complain that his car was messy or that she had a very important rehearsal that day or that she was just plain tired of seeing him hanging around like some creepy stalker. She curled up into a tiny ball and stared out the window, sniffling softly.

He'd never seen her like that. For the longest time, she was just a pain in his ass. She was obnoxious and she didn't seem to care that he wasn't exactly excited to be playing babysitter either. But here, like this, she was lost and quiet and it was… Damn, it was weird. He thought he might actually prefer her making noise and complaining and talking about how superior her acting and singing skills were to everybody else in the cast.

"That blonde chick screwed up the chorus," he said suddenly. "She got the line wrong, but even without that, that shit was flat…"

When she didn't say anything, and he happened to know picking apart other performer's sets was something she loved to do, he frowned.

"Hummel said you talked the costume designer into changing your outfit… He said you broke out the fake tears and everything…"

Rachel was a perfectionist. If there was one thing he'd learned in the last month of watching her back it was that things had to go her way or she would dedicate her every waking moment to _making_ them go her way.

With a sigh, Puck looked over at her from the corner of his eyes. "Look, Berry… Your dad's gonna be fine. It was a through-and-through… Dude was lucky, sure, but he ain't kickin' it yet." He shrugged. "He's a tough old man, right? I mean, hell, this isn't the first time he's taken some lead and he'll probably get hit a few more times…" He frowned, maybe that wasn't the right thing to say. Somehow suggesting even if her dad lived, she'd be back to see him in the hospital again soon didn't sound like the best pep talk.

Wiping at her face, Rachel sat up and pursed her lips. She focused on readjusting her dress over her legs for a long minute. "Have you ever been shot, Noah?" she wondered, her voice quiet and thick.

He glared out at the road ahead of him. "Once, in the arm… Been knifed a couple times…" He smirked. "S'all right though, chicks love scars…"

Her nose wrinkled.

Reaching up, he scrubbed his fingers over his short-cropped hair. "Hurt like a bitch…" He nodded. "Not at first. At first, I was just too pumped to even feel it. I knew it hit me; my whole body jerked with it. But… There's just so much adrenaline going and you've gotta keep your eye out for that next bullet instead of focusing on the one that already got you…" He shook his head. "But when it was all over, yeah…" He licked his lips. "Shit hurt. But I lived. Got it taken out, stitched up, and my arm still works like it did before, so…"

She nodded faintly, but continued to stare at her lap.

Finally, when they pulled into the hospital, she turned to him, her eyes red rimmed, tear tracks showing on her cheeks. She looked so small, so young even though he wasn't much older than her. "Why do you do it?" she asked, staring at him searchingly. "If… If you know that… that you'll just end up here again… That maybe next time the bullet won't hit your arm but—but your chest or your head…" She swallowed thickly. "Why do you still do it?"

Brows furrowed, he looked down. Nobody had ever really asked him that before. His ma never thought it was weird that he joined up with the mob; she didn't ask him where the extra money came from to fix up her house or pay for her car or put Becca through college. She didn't seem to think it was weird that he wore a gun wherever he went. And women… They liked the danger. They liked the idea that he had killed people, without remorse; that he wasn't some nice guy that they'd be bringing home to meet ma and pops. Everybody he worked with, they didn't have questions because they did the same thing. In all his years working for Leroy, the man never asked him why or if he ever planned something else for his life.

Sitting back in his seat, hands flexing over the steering wheel, he shrugged. "I wanted to be a musician once… Had a guitar, wasn't a bad singer… Even wrote a few songs, but…" He chewed his lip and shook his head. "Shit's for dreamers, right…?"

He laughed bitterly and looked over at her, brow quirked. "There's only one thing I'm good at, Rachel… I'm a badass. I scare people; I beat 'em up, I take what I need, I do what your dad tells me to, and I keep going. Keep living. Long as I don't take that bullet to the head, it's just another day…"

He watched her face as it fell. "Some of us, we do it for the money, or 'cause we like it… Like the rush of having absolute power… And some of us just don't know any other way… We didn't catch the breaks, we didn't grow up with a silver spoon in our mouths, we just looked outside at the world and knew there were two ways, the hard way or the one that paid better…"

He crossed his arms over his chest and stared out at the hospital ahead of them. "My ma kicked me out soon as I turned eighteen and I had nowhere to go, nothing to do, nobody to tell me I could make it any other way… So I talked to some people, I got a gun, and I started working for your dad… Wasn't always easy; my boy Artie got killed the first year. Sam a couple years back… Hell, any day now, Finn's probably gonna accidentally blow his own head off, guy's so damn clumsy…" He shook his head, stifling an amused smile.

"You take what life gives ya, y'know? You got talent and looks and so you're out there makin' it big on Broadway." He looked over at her, watching as she tucked her dark hair behind her ear and turned her eyes toward him thoughtfully. "Me?" He forced a smirk. "Babe, I'm just a thug."

Rachel's eyes flitted away before she reached for the door handle. "Thank you for bringing me here," she said as she pushed the door open.

He sighed, nodding as he climbed out his side. He rested his forearms on the roof of the car and watched her from the other side.

Closing the door, she looked over at him and opened her mouth to say something. She paused once, as if she wasn't sure, but finally said, "Will you play for me some time?" She raised her eyes and the expression she wore was almost shy. "One of those songs you wrote in high school."

He snorted. "I was a shit musician," he told her.

She raised her chin then, looking the haughty mob princess he'd come to know her as. "I'll be the judge of that," she told him, before walking off toward the hospital, not waiting for his reply.

Amused, he followed her.

Leroy lived. In the same moment he let his daughter know he was fine, he was letting Puck know they would be retaliating and that he'd have to keep a closer eye on Rachel. Revenge only brought more revenge, which meant if they couldn't kill Leroy, they'd be after her. Puck took him seriously, even if a part of him wanted to get in on the real action. He brought Rachel back to her apartment, checked it top to bottom, made sure the locks on her windows and door were sturdy, and then told her he was camping on her couch.

"Have you lost your mind? You'll do no such thing!" she exclaimed.

Rolling his eyes, he dug out a blanket and stole a pillow from her bed before throwing himself down on the sofa and snatching up her TV remote. "Watch me," he muttered, before looking for something good to watch.

Rachel put on a show of being irritated, banging her dishes around as she prepared dinner, huffing every time she walked past him, complaining that he was interrupting her nightly routine, but there was no moving him. He became a semi-permanent guest in her house for the next week, making sure nobody got any closer to her than he deemed necessary. When she was at the theater, he was practically glued to her side, never far from reach. When she went grocery shopping, he pushed the cart. When she did laundry, he… Well, mostly he just sat on the washer next to hers and flipped coins in the air, playing heads or tails.

The thing about being in such close quarters is that she had a harder time pulling off the 'I hate you and I wish you'd go away' routine. At night, Leroy usually had a couple guys watch the apartment building, giving Puck a chance to go home or hit up the clubs for some company. But now, he was spending 24/7 with Rachel, which also meant watching her walk around in skimpy towels after her shower or wearing that pink satin robe of hers late at night while she paced the living room reading her latest script, wearing those god-awful horn-rimmed glasses that for some reason that completely baffled him actually turned him on. Maybe it was just the way she chewed on her red correction pen while she moved, her pretty pink lips wrapped around the end. He wasn't sure. But for the last few days, it seemed like he was a lot more of aware of her than he ever wanted to be.

Which led to #2 on his top 5 dumbest things he'd ever done.

Sleeping with the boss' daughter.

It wasn't his fault, really. If somebody had to be blamed, he figured it should be Leroy for passing on all the hot genes to his daughter. And maybe whoever shot Leroy for giving Puck the opportunity to get to know the feisty little diva better. Rachel, for all her complaining and diva-tude, was actually a good person. Like, volunteered at animal shelters, only ate vegan-friendly food, taught ballet to children, good.

She was also sweet and had an odd-ball sense of humor. She liked to bake, her specialty being sugar cookies. She had a legit collection of scrapbooks that she'd been adding to since she was four, back when her ma was still alive to help her make them. And in her latest, she had pictures of him. Scowling at the camera, giving it the middle finger, laughing about something she said, hording cookies, playing his guitar ('cause hell, she actually talked him into singing for her), smoking a cigar (even though she hated the smell of those things), watching a game on TV; there were legit _pages_ dedicated to him. To the two of them when he talked her into going to a ball game and she was wearing a foam finger. Or of her hugging the bouquet of roses he'd gotten her for her big opening night. There was one with her still in her stage make-up, holding her playbill, her arm looped around his waist as she grinned widely for the camera.

When he looked at them, they didn't look like a mobster and the girl he was protecting. They looked like a couple. And somewhere along the lines, he figured reality had blurred like that too. Rachel was affectionate after what happened with her dad. At least after she got over the initial snit of not wanting him to stay over. She stopped bugging him as much and instead showed her appreciation for him keeping an eye out. She still argued she could take care of herself and eventually even asked him to teach her self-defense, but she didn't constantly tell him he was 'unnecessary' and should really just 'look for a better job with proper benefits.'

The first week was when things started to change, the second was when an attack happened, changing everything completely.

Rachel had just been leaving the theater, he had his hand on the small of her back and was nodding away at the non-stop point-by-point she was giving him of what rehearsal had been like and why the director had made a mistake in who he'd hired to play her leading man, when suddenly he saw a car coming down the road. It wouldn't be anything if it hadn't slowed down, the windows rolling. In a split second, Puck had his arm around her and turned her around, shielding her behind him as he pulled his gun and started shooting. He was pushing her back toward the theater door as the shots popped off; a barrage of enemy fire ricocheting off the red bricks of the building and the sidewalk on either side of them.

He could hear Rachel screaming; not in pain but in fear. And damn, but she had a set of pipes on her; seriously, he was pretty sure dogs were howling in the distance.

He continued shooting back at the car until they were safely inside the theater once more. He kept pushing her though, his gun empty but still held tightly in his hand. He moved her into the heart of the theater, as far from the doors and the road where the hitmen had passed by.

Rachel was crying and shaking, but she was still moving. He sat her down in one of the many seats lined up for the audience; she was sniffling and mumbling something he couldn't make out. He left her there to call it in and asked Finn to drive by, make sure the coast was clear before they left. If his car was damaged, they would at least have a ride home. With Finn on his way, he walked back to Rachel, who had her face in her hands, her shoulders trembling.

"Were you hit?" he asked her suddenly, kneeling down next to her, his hands roaming, searching.

Instead of replying, she lifted her head and glared at him. Angrily, she started slapping at his shoulders. "Your fault!" she shouted. "All your fault! You and everybody like you! With your guns and your violence and you're just like him! You're just like my dad and it's never going to stop!"

"Calm your shit!" he exclaimed, finally catching her hands to stop her. Her hands were tiny, but hell, they stung! She kept struggling, yanking at her arms to get them free and crying all the while. "Jesus, Rachel, take a breath!"

All the fight went out of her suddenly and she finally dropped her chin. "I want to go _home_ …" she whimpered on a sniffle.

"We are. We're going home," he promised, reaching up to stroke her soft, shiny hair.

Picking her up out of her chair —she didn't weigh much more than a feather— he carried her bridal style out of the theater and out to the same place they'd been when they were attacked. The car that approached then was familiar and it came to a stop not far from them. "Get in," Finn said, nodding his head.

Puck dropped Rachel in the backseat and climbed into the front. His car was totaled; covered in bullet holes, with the tires slashed too, like they hadn't made enough of a point. He had Finn drop them off at home and Rachel silently walked inside, her face stricken, but no words, angry or otherwise, leaving her.

He locked the door behind them and checked the windows. He did a scan of the rest of the apartment while she was busy making herself a cup of tea. When he walked into the kitchen, he was tugging his tie free— 'cause Rachel told him he had to dress up if he was going to shadow her at the theatre—, watching her as she tried to pour the hot water into her delicate little flower-painted tea cup.

He stepped up behind her, covering her hand so he could steady it. She was soft and small at his front, leaning back into him almost imperceptibly. He dropped the pot back onto the stove and moved his hands to her shoulders and kneaded away the tension while she stirred two cubes of sugar into her cup.

"I almost died," she murmured.

His heart lurched in his chest. "Yeah."

"So did you."

He licked his dry lips and nodded. "Yeah."

She sniffled. "I don't want to die, Noah… Not before I've met Barbra Streisand or won a Tony." She turned around to face him. "Please promise me I won't die."

He reached for her face and she turned her whole body toward him, staring up at him with teary eyes. He stroked her wet cheeks with his thumbs, for the first time not feeling uncomfortable with her tears. "I won't let you." He gave her a shake. "All right?"

Her eyes fell, unsure.

"You're a pain in my ass, Rachel, but I won't let you die."

Her gaze rose to meet his. "You promise?"

He nodded, his jaw clenched. "Yeah," he said, leaning his head forward a few inches. " _Yeah_." His lips slanted across hers smoothly, almost so softly that he could barely feel them. But then her fingers were gripping his biceps, furling the fabric of his shirt up in them and she was pushing herself up onto the tips of her toes, pressing her lips harder against his. His hands smoothed away from her face, burying in her hair and at the nape of her neck, holding her tight and close. Their bodies pressed together as he pushed her back until they hit the counter.

She cried out, more in surprise than pain, her lips parting for his tongue to delve inside and stroke hers. She hummed then, her arm wrapping around his waist while the other lifted, fingers scrubbing at the hair topping his ear. She bit his lip and his hips jerked forward, pressing against hers, grinding together.

For a few minutes, he forgot who she was. Forgot whose _daughter_ she was. Just for a few minutes, she was just a woman; a beautiful, talented, _crazy_ woman. And he was just a man; a man she was letting touch her. A man whose fingers slid up the back of her shirt to touch soft, warm skin. Who traced her hips and her ribs and let his thumbs rub along the curves beneath her tits.

And then she was breathing his name against his mouth, her tongue flicking the back of his teeth. " _Noah_ …"

And he remembered he _wasn't_ Noah. He was _Puck_. He was a killer, a mobster, and he had orders to keep her safe, not fuck her on her kitchen counter.

He reared back, panting, his hands held up like somehow she'd burned him.

Confused, she stared at him, her brows furrowed, her mouth red and swollen.

He cleared his throat and licked his lips, reaching up to wipe at his mouth with the back of his hand. "That can't happen… You… You're…" He shook his head. "I can't do that with you."

"You can't _kiss_ me?" she asked, frowning. "Because from where I was standing, it felt like we were doing a very good job of exactly that."

He pursed his lips. "Rachel, kissing's one thing… It wasn't going to end at kissing," he said, knowingly.

Crossing her arms, she raised a brow. "You don't know that… I was quite content with just kissing."

He raised a brow, a smirk tugging at his mouth. "You were undoing my pants," he said, motioning with a hand to his unbuttoned and half unzipped slacks.

Her cheeks lit up red. "I plead the fifth," she said then, before turning around and focusing on her tea once more.

A bark of a laugh left him. "This ain't court, babe. I was there… First hand knowledge of where your hands were headed."

She glared at him over her shoulder before picking up her teacup. "Well I hope the memory serves you well since it's as close as my hands are ever going to get to that general area again!" she exclaimed, before stomping out of the kitchen.

Sighing, he watched her go, and tried to convince himself it was for the better.

He should've known his self control was for shit.

Or more importantly, after all the time he'd spent with her, he should've known Rachel always got what she wanted.

The next two weeks were hell. The kind of hell that was so close to heaven that the devil pretty much _had_ to be behind it. Rachel had apparently taken his rejection and turned it into a challenge. Because now, every morning, instead of walking out in her satin robe, which was already hard on him, she made her way into the kitchen in nothing but her tiny little panties and a skimpy lace and satin top that she said was her nightgown. There was no way in hell that was a gown.

He was pretty sure, if they were using legal terms, this was fucking entrapment.

But Rachel didn't seem to mind. Instead, she became bolder. Sometimes, on her way to the bathroom for her shower, she'd start undressing as she left her bedroom and by the time she was at the door to her bathroom, she was shimmying her panties off, her "nightgown" already tossed, showing the smooth expanse of her tanned, naked back.

Rachel had an amazing ass, one that, try as he might, he couldn't stop staring at. It took a hell of a lot of self-restraint for him not to show her that she was right, kissing was a good idea; he'd kiss her from her head to her toes and everything in between. Like her small brown nipples that pebbled as she moved, stripping her clothes. Or the little dove tattoo she had printed just above her hip bone. And the folds of her pussy as he held her soft thighs apart…

Jesus Christ, but a man didn't have that much control.

She knew what she was doing to him; she didn't even have to touch him. One look at his hands in his lap, the heel of his palm pressing down on the tent in his pants, and it was obvious enough.

But he managed. He wasn't sure how, but he did.

Leroy was back home and well into recovery. Retaliation was underway, but he still wanted Puck keeping an eye on his daughter. He didn't question Puck's loyalty; didn't even seem to think it was a question worth wondering about. Then again, he didn't know his daughter was parading around in next to nothing in the privacy of her apartment, with only Puck there to see. Or that each day when they went to the theater, she would take his hand, playing with his fingers or folding them into the spaces between her own. Or that when she was on stage and singing love songs, she stared at him, watched him, made sure he heard every word, felt every feeling.

Leroy didn't know Puck was in love with his daughter.

Hell, Puck didn't even know.

The same night the boys went out to take down the crew that put a hit on Leroy and tried to take out Rachel, Puck's control finally snapped. And it wasn't the skimpy clothes or the little touches or the out-of-this-world sound of her voice singing him some epic ballad.

She _wrote_ him a song.

"I think it'll fit your vocal range and I made sure it fit perfectly for a strictly acoustic setting, since I know how attached you are to your guitar. I suppose you _could_ change around the notes to add piano and other instruments, but I feel like the emotion would probably be stronger if it was just and your guitar."

It wasn't a song about love or her, it was about him. He realized as he was reading through the lyrics that he'd shared a lot with her. She wrote about his ma and how times were tough growing up with a woman who didn't have the time or energy to wrangle him in. About his dad and how he'd cut and run before Puck could paint a clear picture of him in his head. And Becca was in it, from raising her to seeing her off to college. She wrote about juvie and not having any direction to go in after he hit eighteen. And she alluded to the mob, to death and murder and a crisis of conscience. And at the top, it wasn't titled with some melodramatic sentence-long name. It was just ' _Noah_.'

He remembered that moment when she breathed his name against his lips and he had to remind himself that it wasn't who he was. But reading it there in black ink, he realized he _was_. Puck was the guy that killed people; he beat people within an inch of their lives and he buried friends and foe alike. He did things that regular, normal, _good_ people wouldn't do. He pushed the boundaries of right and wrong and he was never quite sure who he was or where he was going. He was a man living on a timer, waiting for that bullet marked with his name; maybe from a rival gang, maybe from an undercover cop, or hell, maybe one of their own.

Noah was a boy who grew up hoping his dad might come home one day. He was a boy who cherished a guitar above all else. Who looked after his sister like she was his own. Who wished his ma would look at him and be proud. He was a boy who had a dream once, big as it might've been, to hit the road one day and make a name for himself. A boy who wanted to have a better life than the piss poor one he'd been given.

Noah was the man that only came out when he and Rachel were alone. When she put that same old, beat-up guitar in his hands and made him play for her. Who knew every line of every script Rachel read for since he'd met her. Who knew she liked green tea and gold stars and still kept the ratty stuffed animal her mom gave her tucked under her pillow. He was the man who saw redemption and something bigger, something more, when he looked at this tiny little woman who didn't take his shit and saw through all his walls.

He kissed her when she brought his guitar to him, silently demanding he play the song she made for him. He buried a hand in her hair and drew her down until their lips pressed together. He pushed the guitar out of the way, letting it fall to the floor, and instead dragged her into his lap. Yanking her shirt up her body, he threw it over his shoulder and let his hands wander over soft, warm skin, from the flair of her hips to the slope of her shoulders and down her arms as they ringed around his neck. He unsnapped her bra and pushed it away, latching his mouth to her nipple, suckling and nipping at her, squeezing and kneading her tit as his tongue swirled all around.

He laid her back on the couch and kissed all over her body, from the hollows of her throat to the dip of her navel. He stripped her skirt off and yanked her panties down, letting them hang off one of her ankles until she kicked them away. He parted her legs and rubbed her thighs as he bent his head to kiss down her legs, nipping at the delicate bones of her ankles and dragging his tongue over the backs of her knees. Before finally, _finally_ , he had his mouth on her. Her clit teased between his teeth before he sunk lower and licked a long strip across her slit.

She cried out, her hips arching, but he held them down with a hand across her stomach.

He teased her folds, suckling them, parting them with his fingers, his tongue and lips learning where she liked to be licked and touched. He closed his mouth around her clit as two fingers slid inside her slowly, thrusting deep.

She reached for him, her hand curling behind his neck, blunt fingernails digging into his skin.

She was tangy on his tongue, coming twice before he climbed up her body, kissing her hips and her belly button and licking a salty bead of sweat from her skin. Her eyes were glazed as she pulled at his clothes, unbuttoning his shirt quickly and shoving it over his shoulders, where it caught at his elbows. She started on his pants as he stripped it away, throwing it to the floor with her skirt. He grabbed a condom from his pants pocket where they were pooled at his knees. He rolled it on and pushed her knees up as he parted her legs and bent closer.

She reached for him, her hand gripping the length of his cock; she pressed him against her folds, flicking her clit with the tip of him twice before finally she brought him inside her.

His hands flexed on her hips as he inched his way in; she was tight and warm and still fluttering from when she'd climaxed on his tongue. He leaned down and licked her nipple, smiling as her back arched, and he sunk in to the hilt, buried completely inside her.

"Noah, Noah, Noah," she said, repeating his name so quickly it blurred together. Her hands gripped his shoulders, fingertips digging in, urging him to move.

Puck couldn't remember ever making love before in his life; most of the women he'd met wanted it hard and fast. They wanted to come and go and that had always worked for him. But he wanted this to last.

Rachel's arm swiped back behind her to knock a pillow out of her way so she could press her head back as he pulled out and pistoned back in. She hooked one of her legs around his waist and squeezed. "Harder," she demanded.

He shook his head, amused that even now she couldn't let him have any of the control.

Burying his face at her neck, he suckled shapes into her skin as he moved slowly, snapping his hips and grinding himself against her clit, but not moving fast enough for her to get where she wanted to go. One of his hands cupped her boob, thumb thrumming her tight nipple as he moved.

She dragged her nails down his back and cried out as he picked up speed for a few seconds, only to slow down again as she was getting close. She let a hand wander between them and started rubbing her own clit, but he reached for it, folded their fingers together and pinned her hand above her head. She turned her head to glare at him, but he smirked, his mouth covering hers in the same moment. She kissed him back and twisted her hips, squeezing and flexing all around him, rapid-fire, until he moaned, his hips stuttering. She bit his lower lip and wrapped her other leg around him, pulling him in close.

"You can make love to me in my bed, Noah… Right now, I want you to fuck me."

In all the time he'd known her, Rachel had never used profanity; in fact, she sometimes slapped his arm or stomped her heel on his foot when he swore. But that, right there… That was the hottest thing he'd ever heard in his life. And who the hell was he not to answer to that?

Fuck slow, he slid out of her, hitched her legs up higher on his sides and started pistoning his hips until she had her head back, neck strained, and a wail of a cry trapped. Her hands fell to his stomach, pressing against his abdomen as it tightened and rippled. He watched himself as he moved in and out of her, as her thighs tightened up each time he bottomed out. He reached down and flicked her clit, rubbing it with his thumb until she gave a violent shudder and screamed his name. As she squeezed around him, he gritted his teeth, sunk into a few more times and finally came.

Head back, eyes closed, his chest ached with a lack of air. Slowly, he fell on top of her, sweaty skin stuck together, his cheek pressed to her shoulder, panting, his hips still jerking faintly. Her hands smoothed down over his head, one after the other, and stroked the back of his neck.

They laid there a few minutes before he could finally feel his legs again. He climbed off her, holding the condom in place as he walked to the bathroom. After cleaning himself up, he came back to find she hadn't moved, her arm tossed over her face as she focused on her breathing.

When he was beside her, she raised her arm to look at him, her head tipped, and she smiled warmly. She held a hand up for him to take and he helped her off the couch. She turned around, wrapping his arm around her waist and pulling him with her toward the bedroom.

"That wasn't so hard, was it?" she said cheekily.

He pressed in close to her and buried his face in her neck. "I'll show you hard…"

She gave a shriek of a laugh as he grabbed her up and tossed her on her bed, crawling in after her.

It wasn't until morning, when news got to him about what went down that reality came crashing in.

Leroy still wanted him on Rachel-detail, but the war between mob factions was getting bad. Retaliation only meant more revenge and since they'd killed the brother of a mob boss, it was pretty clear things weren't going to be easy from then on out. An eye-for-an-eye was a motto Puck had previously subscribed too, but in this case, that eye pretty much meant Rachel was a walking target.

Rachel was happy to pretend the difficult part of them being together was basically nonexistent.

"Here, in this apartment, it's just us," she would tell him. "There's no daddy, no mobs, nothing… It's just you and me."

And he believed her. He believed they could be good with that. Even when the hit on her life became more evident; there was a price on her head, and it was high. Puck stuck to his guns; hell, he got _more_ guns, and he made sure that wherever she was, he was. He kept a close eye on every person they walked past, every car coming and going. They called cabs instead of replacing his car, since a planted bomb was practically a promise at this point. The one upside was that only those who worked for Leroy knew where Rachel lived.

Or it _was_ an upside until they realized there was a leak.

He should've known, really. If he looked back and took a good hard look, things were obvious. He was there when Sam got it in the back of the head; the only eye-witness to the damn thing. He was supposed to be watching his back. And he'd tried so hard to get on Leroy's good side, to be the guy put on Rachel-detail when things went South. Puck thought he was just being dedicated; he thought he was just clumsy.

Even with their job, he never pinned Finn for a real killer.

But that night, when he showed up at the apartment, Puck knew something was wrong.

Finn was jittery, he was twitching. He walked inside looking like somebody or something was on his tail.

"Where's Rachel?" he asked, scrubbing a hand over his mouth.

"She's got a new script," Puck said, grabbing out a beer for each of them from the fridge. "She's pacing the living room and rewriting half her lines," he told him, amusement coloring his voice. "Why? What's up?"

Finn licked his lips and looked over at him. "Y'know that girl I've been seeing? Quinn?"

He shrugged. "Yeah, sure…" He frowned. "She was dating Sammy a few years back, right?"

"She's a good girl… Kinda girl you marry, right? I—I mean…" He ran a hand through his hair. "You want a certain kind of life, you want to make a home for a family, you gotta sacrifice things… You gotta make hard choices…" He looked up, staring at Puck. "You gotta do things you wouldn't usually do. 'Cause love, man…" He laughed shakily. "Love does something to you, right?"

Puck's eyes moved away from him and toward the doorway leading into the living room.

"Don't," Finn said, his hand shaking as he raised his gun. "It's gonna be quick. I… I promise, Puck." He licked his lips. "I won't make her suffer. I'll just… The back of the head, right? She—She's short and she won't… She won't even know I'm there until…"

Puck's hand snapped the neck of his beer; blood and Bud dripped onto the floor.

"You can't," he told him, his brows set in a line, his jaw ticking. "Finn, you _can't_."

"I know. I know I'm not… I—I've never been like you, like the others…" His eyes darted around. "But I—I _have_ to." He shook his head. "Quinn's a Fabray, Puck… She… She was pushing Sam for info on us and he wouldn't budge. He… He was loyal, y'know?" He laughed sadly. "Not like me, right?"

His gun waved. "So Quinn, she… She came to me. I—I was having doubts. Me and Mercedes, we weren't doin' so good. She wanted to move out to LA. She wanted to sing and I—" He threw his hand up. "What the hell was I gonna do in LA, right? I just—I let her go and… and Quinn was there, she told me if I just helped her then I could make some more money, enough that me and 'Cede, we'd be okay in LA for awhile. It'd give me some time, y'know? To get on my feet… To find something I could do down there…"

He swallowed thickly. "But Quinn, she's just… She's so beautiful and smart and she just… She told me I had to get rid of Sam, 'cause he _knew_ … He knew about her and he'd find out about me and I just… I did it. I—I killed him. But it was quick!" he promised. "Just one shot to the head and he was down. He didn't feel it."

He nodded, his eyes glassy. "And Quinn, she… She told me all I had to do was pump information… Just let the Fabray's know, keep them updated on what was going on. So… So I did." He yanked at his tie like it was choking him. "And then Leroy got hit and she said Rachel was next. She said I had to find them a way in, so I tried, I—I asked Leroy to let me watch Rachel. But he just—He wouldn't _let_ me. He didn't _trust_ me…" He raised his eyes to Puck's, a tear slipping down his cheek. "I told them you'd be outside the theater. I told them to be careful, because you were quick… You'd see them. I told them not to kill you. I begged Quinn not to…" He looked angry then. "But you're always _here!_ You're always with her! We—We couldn't get a clear shot and Fabray was getting pissed. He wanted Rachel dead. And Quinn, she said I had to do it… I had to show them my loyalty or they were gonna kill me too…"

He sniffled, squeezing the grip of his gun. "So I gotta do this… I _have_ to or they're going to kill me…" He stared searchingly at him. "But I promise, okay? She's not going to feel it. I'm going to— It's going to be so _quick_ …" He pulled the trigger back on the gun. "I'm gonna do you first though, because I know you…" He swallowed, his lips trembling. "You'll try and save her and I can't let you."

"Don't do this," Puck told him, shaking his head. "Finn, Rachel is innocent. She's not like her dad. She—She's not like any of us, okay? She's just… She's a fucking actress. She sings and she dances and she doesn't even eat meat for fucksakes!" he told him. "She's a good person. She…" He took a step forward, but stopped when Finn raised his arm a little higher. "Listen to me, okay?" He waved a hand. "Rachel is… She… Rachel..." He ground his teeth together. "Finn, I'm in love with her, okay? I—You can't hurt her. _Please_."

His friend faltered, the gun falling an inch, but then his face went stark. "I'm sorry."

The bang was louder than Puck had ever heard a gunshot be in the past. For a second, he wondered if it was like the last time he got shot, where the adrenaline was pumping so fast that he wouldn't feel it. But then he realized that seconds had passed and he was still breathing. When he opened his eyes, there was blood on his shirt, but no hole.

Finn was lying on the ground, face down, blood quickly pooling beneath him.

Panting, Rachel stood holding a shot gun in her hands, her eyes wide and the gun still held up.

Puck looked from the body to her and then leapt over it, grabbing the gun out of her hands and angling it away from them, flicking the safety on. "Are you okay?" he demanded, even though it was pretty damn obvious that the only one hurt was Finn.

"He—I-I…" She shook her head, her brows furrowed. "He was going to kill you," she muttered.

"Yeah, and then you," he told her. His arm looped around her waist, gripping her tight, as he looked back at Finn. "Where the hell did you get that gun?"

She blinked a few times. "I… I have one under my couch… And in my closet… There's one taped inside the drawer in the bathroom and another in my pantry…" At his shocked look, she reminded rather condescendingly, "My daddy is a mobster, Noah. He showed me how to shoot a gun when I was eight…"

He snorted, amused that he'd thought any less.

Reality forced his grin away, however. He had a dead friend on the ground a huge mess to deal with.

"We need to call your dad," he told her decisively. "Finn was the leak. He's dead, but the Fabray's are waiting on confirmation that you're dead. I wouldn't be surprised if they knew where you lived; your apartment's compromised."

Rachel's hand was at her throat as she looked up at him. "What if we don't?"

He frowned. "Rach, I know you love your apartment, and we just painted so it kind of sucks the big one, but… We can't stay here."

She rolled her eyes. "Not the apartment."

"I'm not following…"

"I… I mean, what if we get rid of Finn and then… we get rid of us…" She stared up at him, her eyes wide. "What if we let them think he did it?"

He shook his head slowly. "Why?"

"The Fabray's will think Finn didn't have the stomach for it after he doesn't show back up. But if we stage the apartment, daddy and everybody will think that Finn killed us… We get rid of Finn and we disappear and nobody has to know…" She stared up at him. "Noah, we could be _free_ …"

His eyes darted, trying to take in the information, but he shook his head. "Your career… Babe, you're just getting recognized on Broadway. You—"

"I'm never going to have that, not really," she interrupted, her voice raising. "Noah, I can't even go to rehearsal without a bodyguard. I—" She laughed, humorlessly. "If you want to make it in this industry, you have to be flexible. You have to answer every beck and call and I _can't_ … And this war, between us and the Fabray's, it will _never_ end. Even if we tell daddy that I'm alive, he'll fight back against them for trying, for turning one of his men; it will be a constant, never-ending battle."

She reached for him, gripping his shoulders. "We could run away… We could start new, somewhere, I… You could sing, I could write your songs, we could just be happy and free and not have to worry about this, about _any_ of this…" She stared up at him searchingly. "Noah, please… _Please_ do this with me."

He stared at her, at the pleading in her face. He looked around the apartment that had once been their sanctuary and now had a body on the floor, a pool of blood building beneath it. He looked at this woman, who'd literally taken a gun and killed someone because she thought he was going to kill someone she loved. Rachel, a woman who couldn't even eat animal meat!

And he thought about this life he led and the expectations he had for himself; looking around every corner, expecting the worst, waiting on the day that he just wouldn't be breathing anymore. He thought about the dream he'd had, of just living a life of music.

He thought of the song she wrote for him and he came to a conclusion. He made a decision that he never really thought he'd ever get to make.

People always said there were crossroads in life; some went left and walked the line, followed the rules, took the hard hits as they came. Others went right, skirted the boundaries, made their own rulebook, and fucked the consequences. At some point, being with Rachel, Puck had found himself weaving in and out of left and right, accepting responsibility, making it his mission to keep her safe and not just because he was ordered to, wanting a regular job, a normal life, the comfort of not having to worry about who might be trying to kill him. And other times, he still told himself that this was who he was, who he was meant to be, who he could never change. A man, with blood on his hands and death in his heart; beyond salvation or redemption.

Now, a crossroads sat before him, clearer than ever, and he had to make a choice.

Left or right.

A month ago, if somebody had asked him to rank whether running away with a mob boss's daughter, one that he slept with despite knowing it would probably earn him a set of cement shoes, one that he fell in _love_ with, would rank on his top 5 dumb as shit things he'd ever done, he'd probably have told them it was number one, with a bullet.

But forty years later, in small town Ohio, sitting on the porch of his old house, his weathered guitar in his lap, three children and six grandchildren to his name, he looked at his wife, curled up in her favorite bench swing, a cup of green tea steaming on the table next to her, red correction pen in hand as she read through the script offered to her for a local stage production they wanted her to direct, he _knew_ it was number one.

On his top 5 best fucking decisions he ever made.

[ **End.** ]


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